Colin Hendry, left, and Viv Anderson at the Hong Kong Soccer Sevens in which a Playon Pro team took part.
Photograph: Power Sport Images/Getty Images

In May a team of former professional footballers set off to take part in the Hong Kong Soccer Sevens. All had played in the English top flight, with David James, Des Walker, Phil Babb, Mikaël Silvestre and Colin Hendry among their number.

“I didn’t really know many of them,” says Kevin Gallen, who was a last-minute addition to the squad. “I’d played against some of them, and there were others I had looked up to when I was a young player. The first day we got there we went for a little training, and it was like rolling back six years to when I was playing, training and having a laugh. That’s what I enjoyed mostly about the trip, just having a laugh with the lads.”

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They had been brought together by Playon Pro, a company launched in September by the former Nottingham Forest, Manchester United and England defender Viv Anderson. Its primary goals are “helping players transition into retirement” and creating “an outlet to help players continue to play with their ex-team-mates, and retain the camaraderie and the dressing-room banter”. Plus, perhaps of equal importance, to earn some money.

Xpro, a charity created in 2011 to assist former professionals, estimates that two in five players will experience serious financial difficulties within five years of retirement, and that a third will have separated from their partner within a year of hanging up their boots.

“Players earning £40,000 a week, they will be bankrupt within five years of retiring,” Anderson says. “You’ve got houses and cars and holidays – you still want to live the lifestyle. If somebody gives a footballer £100, they’ll spend £101. We’ve all fallen into that trap. And when you get to 35 or 36, unless you’re a Beckham or a Gerrard, your agent is on to the next shiny thing. Thank you very much for the last 20 years, goodbye. The clubs are going: ‘We’ve paid you £40,000 a week, you can look after yourself.’ So that’s gone. And you’re sat there thinking: ‘Who else is there to look after me?’ There’s no one. It’s only you.”

Changes to the age at which players can access their pensions have also hit hard. In 2002 the government scrapped a rule that allowed sportspeople to collect private pensions at the age of 35; since 2010 they have had to wait until they reach 55. That age is scheduled to keep rising – those playing now will have to wait until they are at least 59.

Players earning £40,000 a week will be bankrupt within five years of retiring

Viv Anderson

“I got my pension at 35 but now if you finish then you’ve got this 20-year gap,” Anderson says. “And you’re left thinking: ‘Well I’ve lived this lifestyle now, and I’m waiting for this big chunk of money to come in, but I’ve got another 20 years. So I’ve got to do something, I’ve got to get a job.’”

So far some 150 former sportspeople have signed up to Playon Pro, receiving access to an app to communicate with each other, offers from selected retailers, and information about potential work. Playon Pro is not a charity: it arranges for high-profile sportspeople to attend events or play in one-off matches or tournaments anywhere in the world, takes a cut of the fee involved and passes the rest on to the players. It does not only work with footballers but is open to those who have reached the pinnacle of their sport.

“No disrespect to someone at Yeovil but people want players they’ve seen on the television,” Anderson says. “We give players a place to go, to chat among themselves, maybe get job opportunities and to extend their circle of friends and keep busy. That hopefully keeps them going until they are 55 and can get their pension.”

At 42, Gallen has some way to go before he reaches that point. Having retired soon after being released by Luton in 2011, he found it difficult to adjust. “Looking back now, maybe I could have squeezed out another year,” he says. “It’s pretty difficult when you’re walking down the stairs and your knees, your back and your ankles are cracking.

Kevin Gallen, right of foreground, has said he misses the ‘camaraderie’ of professional footballer after retiring. Photograph: Power Sport Images/Getty Images

“One of the reasons why I didn’t play on is because I started coaching full-time at QPR with the youth team, which I loved. Then a new manager came in and brought new people with him,and I got let go. That was pretty hard to take. When you play for a club for 13 or 14 years, support the club and it’s close to your heart and they just wash their hands of you, that’s pretty hard. It was harder than retirement to be honest.”

There's a saying: no friends in football, just acquaintances. I understand that now

Kevin Gallen

Gallen has avoided many of the pitfalls facing the recently retired footballer. He remains married and has a healthy pension to look forward to – thanks mainly to the sage financial advice of Ray Wilkins when Gallen was a youngster at QPR – but has lost “the camaraderie, the socialising, and the great laugh” he enjoyed in his career, having fallen out of touch with most of the people he shared those moments with.

“I’ve got about seven people, maybe 10, from my career who I still speak to,” he says. “Considering I must have played with hundreds, it’s not great is it? That’s what happens in football – when you leave a club you only keep in contact with one or two. There’s a saying: ‘There’s no friends in football, just acquaintances.’ I used to hear people saying that when I was a kid and I thought: ‘What are they talking about?’ Now I understand.”

This is where Playon Pro comes in. Anderson sees a future where players can go straight from the professional game into an established circuit of tours and tournaments. “They do it with golf, they do it with tennis, they do it with individual sports, but nobody’s ever done it with football,” he says.

“I think that’s where we should be heading. Because there’s only a certain amount of jobs – managing, coaching, jobs on Sky or wherever. The majority of ex-players are scrabbling around for this, that and the other, just trying to make a living. All we’re trying to give them is somewhere to go. It could be classed as their last club.”